Advance On Retreat
by rockstar83
Summary: The Dunder Mifflin crew goes on a retreat to encourage coworker bonding. Jim makes it his mission to cheer up a mysteriously upset Pam. JimPam.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: nothing belongs to me (that's true in general, but in this case I refer to the show and/or characters)**

**I'm a longtime fanfic reader but this is my first-ever story. I never would have thought my first one would be "The Office," but I'm obsessed with Jim and Pam and couldn't find enough about them, so I thought I'd write one myself. Constructive criticism requested and loved!**

**Set before/instead of "The Secret;" this is the first of probably 3 chapters.**

_Friday, 11:00 a.m_.

Jim shut down his computer with a sigh. He never would have thought there was a worse place to spend a Friday morning than at Dunder Mifflin, until today. Today he realized there was no worse place to be than on a bus heading toward a weekend of Michael-sanctioned coworker bonding.

It was all Dwight's fault, really. Jim had done much worse to him than glue everything to his desk, but for some reason this time Dwight had snapped. After he stopped spitting, Michael had declared that the level of hostility in the office was "bumming him out," and decided that the entire office needed to spend the weekend on a retreat at a conference center in the woods two hours outside of Scranton.

Jim looked glumly at the brochure Michael had left on his desk. "Friendship Fields: Where Coworkers Become Friends" looked about as boring as Dunder Mifflin, but in the woods. It was a single, bland building surrounded by trees. Basically it looked like hell on earth. And Michael had come into work that day wearing his jeans, so it was definitely going to be a bad day.

Just then a piercing sound exploded behind Jim. Dwight came running out of the conference room, where he had been watching for the bus to arrive, blowing a whistle. "The bus is here. I repeat, the bus is here. Please collect your belongings and proceed to the parking lot in an orderly fashion."

Oh yeah. This was not going to be good.

Jim picked up his bag and went to Pam's desk, where she was staring into space like she hadn't even heard Dwight. She had been acting strangely all day, not smiling at any of his jokes about Michael's ironed jeans or helping him plan ways to torment Dwight on the bus. He had entertained the thought that she had broken up with Roy for a second before sternly reminding himself that Pam was his friend and he didn't want her to be unhappy.

In any case, he decided then and there that he would do whatever it took to cheer her up. If all else failed, the two bottles of vodka that he had packed in his overnight bag would do the trick. Not that he wanted to get Pam drunk again. Although, come to think of it, she was pretty happy when she was drunk at the Dundies… and alcohol was responsible for that one second of pure bliss he had experienced with her…

_Okay, definitely have to stop that train of thought,_ Jim told himself. He wasn't the kind of guy who got girls drunk, he was the kind who took care of them once they were and made sure they got home safely to their fiancées.

"Hey Pam," he said, waving a hand in front of her face. "Come on, it's time to board the bus to hell."

She looked up and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Oh, right." She pulled a bag out from under her desk and shut off her computer. "Let's throw spitballs at the back of Dwight's head."

Jim smiled. Even when she wasn't herself, Pam was still pretty much his favorite person ever.

They sat together in the middle of the bus, even there was enough room for everyone to have their own seat. He let her have the window seat, even though he sometimes got motion sick if he couldn't look outside.

For the first half an hour, Pam was clearly trying to act like her normal self, throwing spitballs at Dwight, who sat in the front seat where he was "using his superior sense of direction to help the driver navigate." Every time they made contact, Dwight would stand up, turn around and threaten to unleash his martial arts skills on anyone who threw another spitball at him.

Michael sat across from him, trying to talk to Phyllis about all the hot chicks in his condo development, while she knitted a scarf and tried to ignore him.

Once they ran out of paper, Pam turned her head and stared out the window, lost in thought. Jim stared at the back of her head, wondering what had her this down. Could she finally have realized that she was too good for Roy? But if that was the case, and she had been the one to dump him, wouldn't she be in a better mood? Jim couldn't believe that Roy would dump Pam; even though the guy didn't appreciate her enough, he'd be insane to break up with her. He'd never get another girl like her.

Jim exhaled deeply and turned to his other side to talk to Stanley. Except for several unsuccessful attempts made by Michael to get everyone to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," the rest of the trip passed in peace.

Eventually the bus turned off the highway and down a winding road, and soon the building from the brochure appeared before them.

Michael bounded off the bus, followed by Dwight, who was blowing his whistle again, followed reluctantly by the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew.

A man who bore a striking resemblance to Geraldo Rivera came out of the building and walked toward them with a placid smile on his face. "Helllllo friends," he said, in a voice that reminded Jim of Mr. Rogers. "Welcome to Friendship Fields. I'm Kenny, and I'll be your guide on your journey from coworkers to lifelong friends."

Jim exchanged sidelong glances with Stanley. He was starting to feel like he was on the Dr. Phil show or something. He realized with fear that he would likely be encouraged to talk about his feelings that weekend.

"Hi, Kenny, I'm Michael Scott, and I'm the leader of this rag-tag gang," Michael said. "You could say I've been their life guide."

"No you couldn't," Stanley muttered to Jim.

"Dwight Schrute, assistant regional manager, Dunder Mifflin Paper Company," Dwight said, breathing heavily at the front of the group.

Kenny looked taken aback but his calm, pleasant smile never left his face. "Okay then! Follow me and we'll get you settled before we get down to the business of bonding."

He turned and walked into the building, followed closely by Michael and Dwight, who was telling Kenny about his purple belt. The rest of the group stared miserably at each other before trudging into the building too. Jim hung back to walk with Pam, who was staring at the ground.

Bumping her shoulder gently with his, Jim bent down to look into her eyes and smiled. Her lips curled upward slightly, but it didn't reach her eyes.

_… To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

**_How is it possible that "Laverne and Shirley" has 119 fanfics and "The Office" only has 37? Let's do something about that!_**

_**Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter, every single one made my day. Keep them coming! Sorry this took awhile; silly school keeps making me write boring things instead of this.**_

**_But here's chapter 2, and the final chapter should be up soon!_ **

_**(I still own nothing.)**_

Jim woke up on Saturday morning in the most disturbing way he ever could have imagined: with Dwight standing over his bed, staring at him.

"Dwight, if you don't get away from my bed immediately, I can't be held responsible for the bodily harm I will inflict on you," he said groggily.

"You can't hurt me, I'm a martial artist," Dwight said. "I can hurt you though. I know twelve ways to kill you using just my big toe."

Jim rolled over to face the wall of their room and closed his eyes again, hoping that if he just wished hard enough, Dwight would spontaneously combust.

When they had walked into the lodge the night before and Michael had announced that Jim and Dwight would be rooming together, Jim thought he might throw up. "Since you two are the reason we're all here," the boss had said, "I think it'll be really good for both of you to spend some quality time together."

"So what you're saying is you just don't want to room with Dwight," Jim had said.

"Well, Jim, that's not… really… yeah, something like that."

The only one who looked more miserable than Jim was Ryan, when Michael had told him they'd be rooming together.

In fact, the only thing that made Jim feel better now was thinking about what Ryan was probably waking up to that morning. He'd be lucky if Michael hadn't gotten in bed with him.

Once Jim had gotten dressed (in the bathroom - no way was he going to undress in front of Dwight) he went down the hall to find Pam.

When he knocked on her door, it took nearly a minute for her to answer the door. She looked even more miserable than she had the night before, if that was possible. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her hair was a mess, and still Jim thought she was beautiful.

He immediately forgot the joke he had prepared about waking up with Dwight and stepped toward her, worried. "Pam, what's wrong?"

She wiped her eyes and turned back toward the room. "Nothing, I'm just… I don't know." She sounded so tired and defeated that his heart hurt.

"Something _is _wrong, and I'm worried about you. Come on, talk to me," he said, closing her door behind him.

She sat on the bed and looked out the window in silence.

There were an uneven number of women so she had her own room. It was smaller than his with only a single bed, a nightstand, lamp and dresser.

He couldn't stand the silence. It wasn't the usual comfortable silence they had shared so many times before. He could feel the tension around Pam, and sadness too.

"You know," he said, a little too loudly, "this room reminds me of summer camp."

"What?" she asked, turning from the window to look at him. "What sort of summer camp were _you_ going to?"

"Um, Camp Confidence."

"That sounds like a place for kids with low self-esteem."

"Sort of," he said. "Mostly it focused on physical fitness and healthy living."

"Wait a second," she said. "You went to… _fat camp_?"

Jim would have been embarrassed if this revelation hadn't caused her eyes to light up. He sat down on the other side of the bed. "It wasn't fat camp! They encouraged good eating habits and… okay, it was fat camp. I was a husky child."

She laughed. She had a wonderful laugh, not like anyone else he knew. His roommate's girlfriend laughed like a cartoon, high and grating. His neighbor Andrea laughed like a machine gun – short, loud bursts of laughter. His mother's laugh came out as individual "heh heh heh's." But Pam's laugh was just like her: easy, soft and friendly. And just like her, it made him feel warm all over.

"So will you tell me what's wrong, or what?"

She took a long, shaky breath. "Thanks, but honestly I'm okay. Let's just go downstairs and see what horror is in store for us today."

* * *

By dinnertime, nearly every Dunder Mifflin worker looked as though they had lost his or her will to live. They sat around the round tables in the dining room in near silence. 

The day had started off with a seminar called "My Co-Worker, Myself" in which Kenny had instructed them to partner up and role-play as their partner. Jim didn't even have a chance to look to Pam before Michael claimed him as his partner. Knowing the situation would only be worse if he resisted, Jim grudgingly agreed to partner with Michael.

"Okay, everyone, we're going to act out some different situations that might take place in the office," Kenny said, still wearing the same placid smile. "I want you to think about how your co-worker might really _feel_ in these situations. Do they feel frustrated? Insecure?"

"Whoa there Ken Doll, my people are never anything but hopeful and happy in my office," Michael said. "I don't know what kind of groups you've had here in the past but I'm willing to bet that they don't have bosses like Michael Scott."

"I think that's a safe bet," Jim muttered to Pam.

"I've created a really positive environment for all my people," Michael continued, oblivious to the glares focused on him, "so it really wouldn't be realistic to act out those negative things you're describing."

Kenny looked at him with a hint of pity in his eyes. "I'm sure you have, Michael, but you're the one who brought the group here because of continuous negative encounters your staff has had with one another, so I really think this exercise will be helpful. Besides, no office can be positive all the time. These situations are bound to come up."

"No offense, Kenny boy, but I think I know my people a little better than you do. And if we could just act out scenes where the staff are having really positive talks with their boss, I just think that – "

Kenny's eyes narrowed slightly but the smile never left his face. "Let's just try it this way, Michael."

Michael shook his head disbelievingly and came back to stand next to Jim. "I can't believe they let this guy run this place," he whispered loudly. "He so clearly knows nothing about what it means to be a boss."

Dwight came up behind them. "They should let you teach the class, Michael," he said intensely. "You know more about leadership than this guy. You taught me everything I know."

"God, I hope not," Michael said.

* * *

The group spent a painful two hours acting out different scenarios that Kenny gave them. Jim gained a new respect for the people in Michael's improv class as he watched in disbelief as his boss managed to make a fool of himself in every single scenario. He was amazed at Michael's ability to introduce a gun into every situation. Jim eventually just walked away when Michael started waving an invisible pistol during a pretend dispute over whose turn it was to use the microwave. 

Finally it was over and everyone went to lunch. Jim sat down next to Pam at an empty table and smiled at her. She gave him a small smile back and looked like she wanted to say something. Just as she opened her mouth, Michael sat down next to her. "Hey, there, Pamburgler, what's cooking? Is this great or what?"

Silently cursing Michael, Jim turned to his lunch.

* * *

The afternoon passed just as slowly as the morning. They trudged to a seminar about how to be good listeners, then a sexual harassment session in which Michael made at least a dozen digs at Toby and just as many inappropriate comments to all the women and Ryan, who at that point was no longer hiding his disgust toward their boss. Jim noticed Dwight and Angela were sitting awfully close together and made a mental note to tell Pam about it. 

The last event of the day was a wine and cheese happy hour. Just when Jim thought that they were finally done with the goofy get-to-know-you activities, Kenny told them each to pick an animal they'd like to be, and then see how much they knew about their co-workers by guessing each other's animals.

Everyone correctly guessed Angela would be a cat and that Kevin would be a bear. Jim had no idea how he was supposed to know that Phyllis would be an anteater if she could, or that Dwight would be a raptor-chameleon hybrid. No one bothered to guess Michael's animal, much to his dismay, so he cornered Kenny and made him guess instead.

"Um, I don't know, a woodpecker?" Jim overheard the man say tiredly.

Pam walked over to Jim. "Why does everyone keep guessing I'd be a cat? I shudder to think that everyone thinks I have something in common with Angela."

"It's probably just because of your Halloween costume," Jim said. "You did make a very convincing cat."

"I don't want to be a cat! They're snobby and they pee in your house."

Jim pretended to think. "I don't think you'd be a cat. I think you'd be… a bird. A hummingbird, maybe."

Pam's eyes opened wide. "How did you know that?"

Jim smiled at her. "I guess I just… know you."

The smile left Pam's face. "I guess you do," she said quietly, as her eyes clouded over.

…_to be continued…_


End file.
